


Recovery

by Thessalian



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thessalian/pseuds/Thessalian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joker finds out that losing everything doesn't have to be permanent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recovery

_The Normandy is exploding around him, and Shepard drags him, screaming if not kicking, to the nearest escape pod - the last of them. She tosses him in as gently as she's able and is just reaching for the controls when another blast hits, rocking the demolished deck under her feet and shaking her loose. She grabs a bulkhead but the laser turns the foot or two of space between her and the escape pod into a kill-zone. He calls out to her, and even through the polarised visor he can see it in her eyes - she knows what has to happen now. One of them makes it out alive, or neither of them do._

_She can't do this to him, right? She can't leave him full of survivor's guilt, watch her throw her own life away without even trying, just to be sure he'll get out of the burning wreck of his ship. She can't make him watch as he loses his best girls..._

_She can. She does. Her eyes tell him not to blame himself just before she's shaken loose from the bulkhead and uses her last flailing action before she's thrown into the void to send his little escape pod to safety._

" **Shepard!** "

Joker sat upright with a start, that name still on his lips. That nightmare again. Sure, it had only been a couple of months, but every night seemed a little excessive. Then again, he was at least grateful for whatever managed to wake him up before that particular reminiscence-nightmare finished up along its usual plotted course. Usually it skipped to the point where people were prying open the doors of his escape pod, and the looks on various faces when they realised it was only him in there; how the glow of Tali's eyes behind her mask went dim, how Liara bit her lip and then burst into tears ... how Kaidan closed his eyes and balled his fists, restraining the urge to join Liara in her weeping or punch Joker out - or both.

His door chimed - probably for the second time - and Joker sighed. That would be what woke him up. He was not in the mood for talking to anyone, but if they rang more than once, they probably weren't going to just go away if he hid behind the sofa or something. With a grumble of, "This had better not be hanar with Enkindler pamphlets again", he pulled the recliner in which he had been napping into an upright position and reached for his crutches as the door chimed yet again. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming; keep your shirt on."

Before he could get his crutches under him, the door beeped and opened - someone had hacked his lock. 'Someone' was a tall woman with dark hair, blue eyes, kissable lips and a body that made him want to take back his comment about shirts and the removal thereof. Not that her skin-tight white outfit left much to the imagination anyway. For all that, Joker managed to keep his tongue in his mouth and said, "Y'know, most people wait for someone to open the door. It's the polite thing to do."

The woman looked at him. "I waited until I knew you were in and awake. That counts in my favour."

"Yeah; otherwise I'd have thought you were coming in to peep at me while I was in the shower or something. Which ... well, who could blame you?" When the intruder just smirked at him a little, he shook his head. Some people had no sense of humour. "Look, mind telling me what you broke in here for? Let me tell you; if you're after my holovid collection, we're gonna fight. You can have my Loony Tunes when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers."

She raised an eyebrow at him, then gave a nearly imperceptible shrug and got down to business. "My name is Miranda Lawson, Mr Moreau. I'm here with a job offer."

This, Joker decided, had gone past the Bad Joke Event Horizon, so he just glared at Miranda for a moment. When she stood there watching him, unfazed and waiting for more of a reaction, Joker sank back in his armchair and told her, "Wow. Private sector does door-to-door service now. Convenient, but I already have a job, thanks."

"No you don't." Miranda stepped over to the window of his apartment and looked out onto his admittedly substandard view of the colony. "Last I heard, you were on administrative leave after the destruction of the Normandy. You got grounded, so I heard, and--"

"Y'know, since you broke into my house, I figure we can drop the manners, so shut up and get lost." Joker did not want to think about his 'administrative leave' too much. Not yet. It still hurt too much, being hauled in front of a tribunal and told, in careful and ever-so-polite terms, that his Vrolik's syndrome, while not an impediment to flying a ship, made it difficult for him to evacuate one, and he had to be grounded due to safety regs. Maybe they hadn't meant to blame him for Shepard's death, but they had, and it was just one extra bit of blame he didn't need. He blamed himself enough for three people his size, and had awkwardness with Alenko - one of his closest friends - because of it.

But the Lawson woman just kept going like Joker hadn't interrupted. "--And once your leave's over, you'll be teaching men and women how to fly maybe ... half as well as you do now? It'll be all they're capable of, after all."

Joker rolled his eyes. "Oh, and I suppose you've got something better."

"I do. I can put you at the helm of a ship again."

Joker looked away, thinking of deals with the devil. People didn't just break into people's apartments and give them the things they wanted. There was always a catch. He didn't really want to hear the catch. It might tempt him too much. Once he got his head back on straight, he managed a bitter chuckle. "Yeah. I'm gonna be real happy doing pleasure cruises for ExoGeni execs. Right."

Miranda turned to look at him then, with a little smirk that could only be called diabolical. "I'm afraid this will be a little more militaristic than you're thinking, Mr Moreau. And there's another perk as well. Though that one ... will have to be seen to be believed."

_Damnit, now I'm curious._ The look on Lawson's face was so expectant, so knowing ... he had to at least know what she knew - or thought she knew - about him that made her so confident that she had him hooked through the bag. Still, he wasn't going to fall all over himself saying yes, either. Mostly because she so obviously expected him to. "Well, I guess it beats staring at the walls all day," he told her, his best put-upon expression in place. "Still ... mind if I ask who you're working for first?"

She looked at him. "Why don't we save the more in-depth introductions for when you've seen the offer. You'll know who you'd be working with before we ask for a definitive answer; I can promise you that much."

"So basically you're going to make me an offer I can't refuse, then give me the reasons why I'd want to," said Joker, who was no fool.

Lawson only smiled.

After an expectant pause, Joker sighed, got his crutches under him and got to his feet. "You're buying me lunch on the way, so you know."

\-------------------------

Miranda Lawson of the rocking body and the deep dark secrets gave Joker thirty-eight different dirty looks for bringing a couple of mustard-coated hot dogs (probably full of varren meat) aboard her immaculately clean shuttle. Joker counted. He also talked with his mouth full, mostly off-colour jokes. It was a test; he wanted to see just how badly she wanted him for this job of hers, even if she was cagey as to why she wanted him specifically. She must have wanted his piloting skills very badly indeed if she put up with the shit he gave her on the shuttle ride.

He subsided as they docked at some sort of space station in some middle-of-nowhere section of the Traverse, or so he judged by velocity and a couple of distinctive little markers on the mass relays they used. As Miranda led the way through sterile white corridors, Joker looked around and asked, "Hey, you're not thinking of using me as some kind of lab rat, are you? Vrolik's doesn't exactly have a cure unless you're looking to replace my skeleton with--"

They stopped at a long window - one-way glass, if Joker was any judge - looking onto some kind of cross between a research lab, hospital and morgue, and Joker shut up. He had a split-second of terror that these people really were going to turn him into some kind of lab rat, wanted to cut him open and scrape his brittle bones or something...

And then he saw the body on the operating table, and for a moment he couldn't think at all.

It was only barely recognisable as a human female. Reconstructive efforts were in progress to turn what looked more like long pig jerky than anything else into a workable human being. He caught scans out of the corner of his eye - saw the jigsaw-puzzle mess that was the skeleton, the nearly imperceptible brain waves, the _heartbeat_...

They had started with some of her face. They had stopped at basic efforts and there were still ugly scars over what looked like intensive micromesh cybernetic weave replacing muscle, but it was enough to make her recognisable. But then again, after seeing that face every day for months, he'd know that face no matter what.

".............Sh-shepard?"

That was when Miranda chose to hit him with the curve ball. "This is Project Lazarus," she said. "A Cerberus initiative with one remit: to recover and revive Commander Shepard, exactly as she was before the destruction of the Normandy. Humanity needs her, Mr Moreau. What she's seen, what she's done ... what she's capable of, the galaxy as a whole and humanity in particular needs her alive and whole. Part of that involves stability - at least one person she trusts. Not to mention things only a friend would know; tastes and preferences, personal touches, that sort of thing. And if that comes with one of the best pilots in the galaxy as an added perk..." She left the sentence hanging.

It didn't hang for long. Joker, mouth working independent of his overworked brain, said, "Hey, could we drop the 'one of the' part? I _am_ the best, hands down, no question." Even as he launched into his usual rant about how he had earned his flight school top-spot and every commendation, he watched the monitors tell him that Shepard was alive, that Cerberus had brought Shepard back ... and that they needed him to do the job right.

Mysterious, conniving and untrustworthy as hell? Sure. But if he didn't sign up for this, not only did he resign himself to never flying again, but he left Shepard's recovery in the hands of people who didn't know her worth shit. She might end up nothing more than a guinea pig or a Cerberus killing machine if someone didn't have her back. Who'd make sure she still laughed over Loony Tunes, or that she kept her inexplicable fondness for salarian opera, if he didn't? Who'd remind them that Ilium spice-pears made her break out in hives? Yes, they were stupid little things, but they were just as much a part of her as her skill with tech and the colour of her eyes.

Miranda broke into his internal debate at that point. "So ... think you'll take the job?"

Joker stole another moment just to watch Shepard's heart beat slow and steady on the monitor in front of him. Then he turned to face Miranda, careful where he placed his crutches. "One condition," he said.

She raised an eyebrow, folded her arms. "Name it."

\-------------------------

"Damn, Shepard, they've been working _overtime_."

Joker staggered into the room, wincing with every step but still walking on his own, if more carefully than most might. Wilson had already dragged up a chair so that Joker could sit at Shepard's bedside, and he fell into it gratefully. A lightweight sheet covered Shepard from knee to shoulder for the sake of modesty, but it also afforded a good view of how well the new skin grafts on her legs were taking. After peering at her chart, Joker said, "Huh. Looks like we both got upgrades on the legs. Glad I didn't get yours, though; any more cybernetics in your nerve fibres and your knees'll be VI. And ... man, I think there was less metal alloy in the Mako's hull than in your bones right now. I'll stick with my subdermal leg braces, thanks. Any more 'fixed' and people might expect me to run into combat."

"Might not do you any harm, kid," was Wilson's parting shot before he left the room.

Joker snorted. "That's some bedside manner you're getting, Commander. Now, where were we?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a datapad, then hit a few buttons so that music started to filter from the little speakers. "Still don't know how salarians can sing 'my DNA's exemplary / so sign this form and breed with me' with a straight face, you know. Barry White, this ain't. Anyway." He hit another couple of buttons on the pad until he got text scroll and cleared his throat. "So last time, Blasto had infiltrated the Blood Pack base on Minos ... but it turns out that the whole thing was a trap, and Blasto found himself surrounded by vorcha with flamethrowers, saying--" he wrinkled up his nose and set his voice to a gravelly, hissing growl "--'raaaaaah! We barbecue you, puny Spectre, and feast on hanar flesh!' So Blasto - and obviously he's totally cool in the face of flaming death, right? Blasto says--" he shifted to a more formal and polite register, one he had been practicing in front of the mirror for days as a distraction from the pain of his surgery scars healing over "--'this one regrets to inform you that calimari is off the menu'. Then he whips out a bunch of sticky grenades - and I dunno where he was keeping those things, but anyway, his tentacles just _lash_ right out and stick those sticky grenades right up--"

From her spot on the other side of the one-way mirror, Miranda watched and listened as Joker continued the tale of Blasto the hanar Spectre. Jacob stepped up beside her and asked, "All part of the Lazarus Project, Miranda?" He smirked a little before he added, "Or do you just like to hear him doing the voices?"

Miranda rolled her eyes. "It's all within project parameters. If some ... pilot with delusions of grandeur and a questionable sense of humour will bring her back precisely as she was, I suppose I'll just have to cope with his pathetic vorcha impersonation."

Jacob watched her out of the corner of his eye. "Uh-huh." After a moment, he pointed out, "I'm pretty sure that was a smile I just saw there."

Miranda looked away. "There was a ... fluctuation in her EEG, that's all. A good sign."

"Uh-huh." Jacob knew when to shut up, so instead of pushing the issue further, he just stood with Miranda and watched Joker see to the one part of Shepard's recovery that no amount of tech or credits could manufacture.


End file.
